DeVotchKa more than Hollywood sound

Thursday

DeVotchKa is back after a few years away, with a new album and a new tour that is all about reconnecting with their audiences in a closer, more direct way.

DeVotchKa's music has been described as influenced by Eastern European folk music and indie rock, but that shorthand misses the vitality of the gypsy jazz feeling that permeates their work. There's also a gleeful return to rootsy forms, and unusual instruments, and singer Nick Urata's passionate crooning style, which could be viewed as a deliberate throwback to vaudeville and cabaret jazz.

DeVotchKa -- the name comes from a Russian term for girl -- began in 1997 in Denver, with Urata on vocals, theremin, guitar, piano, and trumpet, Tom Hagerman on violin, and accordion, Jeanie Schroder on vocals sousaphone, flute and bass, and Shawn King on percussion and trumpet. Given their retro sound -- perhaps more at home in the 1930s -- it comes as no surprise to learn that some of their first gigs were in burlesque theaters, and accompanying burlesque artist Dita Von Teese.

DeVotchKa had a popular breakthrough of sorts with their performance at the 2006 Bonaroo Festival, and that same year their music was tapped for the movie "Little Miss Sunshine." Writing with Mycheal Danna, Urata's music for that film was nominated for a Grammy.

Urata has pursued a kind of dual career since then, writing and performing with the band, and also composing soundtracks for movies such as "Crazy Stupid Love," "Whiskey Tango Foxtrot," "Paddington," and the Netflix program "A Series of Unfortunate Events." But for the past six years or so, the focus has been more on the film scoring than on the concert stage, and the last DeVotchKa album was 2012's "DeVotchKa Live with the Colorado Symphony."

At the end of August, DeVotchKa released its newest album, "This Night Falls Forever," and embarked on a lengthy tour schedule that had them in Europe earlier this month. The enthralling sweep and soaring majesty of the band's arrangements has never been better on the new album, and Urata's lyrics, romantic and introspective, seem to reach out and grab the listener's emotional core. That's no mistake, as Urata has been quoted as saying he felt the band was losing its organic connection to its audience in some previous, stadium-level tours, and that was a factor in taking their break from performing. There's been a determined effort on this tour to play venues that are more intimate and allow the musicians to perform "up close and personal."

DeVotchKa's film background is evident in the first two videos for the new music, which are frankly dazzling. "Straight Shot," a jauntily upbeat piece of gypsy jazz fun, features a video of Urata in what looks like an old vaudeville set meant to represent the ocean. As the tune unfolds and the faux waves roll, a surreal cast of characters dance in and out of the picture, many with cartoon-ish masks and costumes. Through it all Urata is playing a ukelele, and some later shots of the band dancing among the merriment has them playing accordion, bassoon, and drums. It's such a wild scene of things happening, as the song's chorus pledges "it just takes time," that movie buffs might well consider it Busby Berkeley returning from a bad trip, and it ends with all the characters discovering light beams pointing up from their hands.

The second new video from the album is for the song "Empty Vessels," a kind of rumination on life and the need to keep re-inventing oneself, delivered with a wistful ballad. The main character is an old man with a little terrier who leaves his home, walks through a crowded city, hitches a ride on a boxcar, meets some wolves in a forest, and ends up at a lake. Meanwhile, scenes of Urata swimming underwater and singing are intercut. The old man leaves his dog on the shore, rows out to the middle of the lake and dives in, swimming toward some submerged ruins, while Urata appears, headed the same way, and then the video blends out into a scene of two children playing. As an ode to "carpe diem" the song and its imagery are really quite striking.

Other songs on the new album come in a variety of guises. "Lose You In the Crowd" starts softly and subtly builds to power ballad and then to anthemic status, with an insistent beat that belies its acoustic roots. "My Little Despot," with its symphonic aura, has a fast paced shuffle beat underlying it, even as Urata's vocal is dramatic and rueful, verging on campy. That's a tune about a lover who's too controlling, by the way, and not a political statement of any kind, although fans have already had their own interpretations. Mainly, as music, its a wrenching bit of music that could be the soundtracks for a film noir.

"Love Letters" is a more conventional ballad, with a chiming melody over an easy swing arrangement, but when Urata sings "Are you still in love with me?" it's easy to wonder if he means one specific mate, or his band's audience as a whole. "Done With Those Days" is a lovely romantic ballad, accented by the keening tones of the theremin, where Urata's crooning the soothing melody over the unusual instruments truly delivers something special.

The band was en route from Belgium mid-week, so we did an email interview with Urata.

Q It's easy to see how you've incorporated your film work into the new videos, and "Straight Shot" and "Empty Vessels" in particular are incredibly evocative combinations of the music and images. Has the film work changed the way you write songs over the past few years, which is to say do you find yourself imagining potential cinematic storylines even as you're composing the music?

A From our first recordings we were always trying to make movies without a camera," Urata replied, "to make music that would transport the listener, to evoke images of far away places and forgotten times. I have always tired to create different characters to “narrate” the story behind the song. Our early pursuits of these sounds eventually led us to actually working with film makers and creating scores. On this record we have become even closer to our initial dreams. Going so far as to actually record with actual film orchestras on Hollywood scoring stages. I can only hope that being in the constant company of all these great storytellers has rubbed off on me.

Q The increased scope of the arrangements is really enticing, and from reading the various bios, it seems that much of the work filling them out is done with the band in the studio. Presumably this is a trial-and-error process? Does it take varying amounts of time before you all feel like you've got it? How detailed a blueprint do you have initially?

A All of these songs started as little lyrical plays in my dog eared notebook, I like to think they take on a life of their own and eventually dictate where the music should take them" said Urata. "It can sometimes take years and many incarnations to feel you have done it justice. You get very attached, it becomes hard to let go and send them out into the world. That's when its great to have collaborators like DeVotchKa, you can take a step back and see it through a different lens.

Q It was interesting to read about the gap between records, and your desire to reconnect with your audience at a more organic level. Is it easier to adapt the recorded music to performances when you're playing smaller venues? Better for the vocals to impact the audience in smaller places like Once Ballroom, rather than big arenas?

A Yeah things did get a little weird there, the reality of playing on a giant stage is sometimes not as cool when you fantasized about it.," said Urata. "We came up playing small clubs and basement parties, where there is a very simple raw connection between you and the audience. It connects to this source of strength and skill you had no idea you could possess. You immediately know what is going to work about a song and what is not. When we went back and played some of our favorite dives, I was really struck by how deeply people were connecting with the lyrics. It made me double down on my efforts, I spent the next few years in a daily pursuit of meaningful lyrics that would hopefully stand the test of time. Seeing the lyrics to "Straight Shot" mainly interpreted as ruminating on life and love, it also seems there is a little sub-current of the band and its ambitions, such as the phrase "Ours was a tale that would never end, Doors were going in and rules were going to bend.."

Q Another song, "Lost You in the Crowd" almost seems like a statement of how much you love and need performance in front of audiences to sustain the creative fire, and even "Love Letters" can be seen as partly referring to fan response. So, are all these notions part of you reaching out anew to your audience, and expressing your appreciation for their interest and loyalty?

A I'm glad you brought that up," said Urata. "All the songs you mentioned are about life altering relationships. We are lucky if we have just a handful of these while we are here on this earth. Those encounters form the basis for all my little stories. And like I was saying in the previous response, a once unimaginable relationship has been forged between the musicians and the audience. I tried to give voice to the unavoidable rush of memories and often misguided efforts to maintain these intangible bonds that I know we all have experienced in our lives. Just as a brief technical thing, how difficult is it to re-create the multi-textured sounds of the album in a live setting, with just the four of you?

Q We are lucky to have many amazing musical collaborators in addition to the four of us, they help us round out the large arrangements," Urata answered. "That said, our live shows tend to emphasize the rhythm and emotion. at the core of the songs, in short we want to get people on their feet and forgetting their troubles.